Advice: Technology transfer/Intellectual property

MusRo

Hi,
I am a disillusioned academic scientist and really want to change my career direction. I have been reading a little about some science related fields such as intellectual property, pharmacovigilance, regulatory affairs and technology transfer and i was wondering if anyone has any experience in any of these areas and can give me advice about where one starts looking for jobs in these areas, the types of salaries that I should expect (I have a PhD in biology and a degree in Biotechnology) considering I don't have industry experience (but I do have 3 years of international academic experience and am looking to return to Ireland).
Any help greatly appreciated
Thanks

information

MusRo wrote: »

Hi,
I am a disillusioned academic scientist and really want to change my career direction. I have been reading a little about some science related fields such as intellectual property, pharmacovigilance, regulatory affairs and technology transfer and i was wondering if anyone has any experience in any of these areas and can give me advice about where one starts looking for jobs in these areas, the types of salaries that I should expect (I have a PhD in biology and a degree in Biotechnology) considering I don't have industry experience (but I do have 3 years of international academic experience and am looking to return to Ireland).
Any help greatly appreciated
Thanks

Most 3rd levels have tech transfer offices, I know DIT are doing a big push in this area and are opening a large tech transfer facility when they move to grangegorman.

The first 2 jobs are for the tech transfer/development office.

http://www.dit.ie/vacancies

MusRo

Thank you for your advice. I have had a look at the jobs on the DIT website and they are interesting although I don't think they would be suitable for a newbie like me... The Marketing Officer position is obviously heavily focused on the marketing side (of which I have zero experience) and I already earn the top end of that salary range. The other position seems way out of my reach as they require years of experience.... I can tick about half of the boxes... I guess I am looking for something in between... I don't mind taking a slight pay cut for the first year of two until I get my foot in the door... I wonder if anyone knows if there are any Technology transfer/intellectual property courses out there that I could do a) to give me a better idea about what the career involves and b) to give me a qualification that I could use to get me into this career?
Thanks in advance,
MusRo

ArthurDent

Why not try to break into this area by getting a job in one of the CSET groups - maybe like CBAS in DCU - there are both academic and industrial conponents to these and may give you the experience you need - also most of them work v closely with tech transfer offices so you might be able to gain the knowledge you need that way.

Enterprise Ireland and the IDA sometimes look for technical people to act as Development Advisors or similar - might be owrth keeping an eye on public jobs.ie for these types of jobs

ArthurDent

a cousre like this
http://go4th.ie/management/msc_tech_mgmt.html

might be useful - no experience f this one, but know of people that have done a similar one through UCD and they found it useful from a career point of view (expensive though and most people are sponsered to do it by company govt body etc)

Programme aims and objectives
The programme aims to:

Develop knowledge and understanding of the
increasingly important area of technology manage-
ment.
Build the management and leadership
capabilities of companies and individuals in this
area.
Enable graduates to facilitate organisational change
and sustainable improvements at the enterprise
level through competitive work systems and effective
knowledge management.
The programme is offered under the auspices of the
Atlantic University Alliance (AUA), which is a collaborative
agreement between UCC, U.L., and NUI Galway and
involves all three universities working on a number of joint
projects in the training, education, and R&D areas.

MusRo

Thanks for the advice Arthur. That's really informative. The course looks very interesting and distance learning is perfect for someone like me living and working in the UK. The downside is that the entry requirements for this course include having 3 years industry experience which I don't have.. I wish someone had advised me years ago to enter into industry rather than academia... I have been keeping an eye on the publicjobs.ie website already and I will certainly look into the CSET groups. The ideal scenario for me would be to gain some experience in the UK while doing a course (distance learning if possible) and then aim to return to the Emerald Isle in about 2 years with some experience at my back....
Thanks again for your help,
MusRo